


This Place I've Called Home

by dorothydonne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, And also maybe a heaping pile of angst, Angst, Crossover, I can't help it, M/M, Magic, Plot, Post-Potter, Potterlock, Pre-Slash, We're getting around to the slash now, eventual slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-05-08
Packaged: 2017-11-02 20:36:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorothydonne/pseuds/dorothydonne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson has just been brought on as head of the infirmary at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When he meets the eccentric Potions master, he's instantly intrigued.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The State of Your Knees

"Ah, here we are." 

John stopped with the Headmaster and stared up at the entrance to the Potions classroom. He had come a long way from the scared first year walking into doubles with his housemates and the Ravenclaws. He barely remembered that boy now. Long gone were the days when Professor Severus Snape had been the scariest wizard he could imagine. Twenty-five years after the Battle of Hogwarts, he considered the man a hero. Who, then, now filled his shoes as Potions master?

The Headmaster knocked twice on the door before waving his hand to open it without being invited. The lighting was dim as John remembered, and the heavy stench of mould was just as strong as ever. He'd never understood the appeal of the castle's dungeons, but that was neither here nor there. He supposed they were solitary when one sought out the quiet. 

"I do believe the courtesy of knocking is voided when one just enters without invitation, brother." There was a dark figure at the front of the classroom, slightly hunched over with his back to his guests. John assumed he was observing a busy cauldron, if the slight light silhouetting the dark mop of his head and curved lines of his shoulders was any indication. His voice was as cool as the room they stood in; deep as its place below the castle. John nearly shivered, though he couldn't be sure why. 

"The knocking was purely an alert to my presence. I know how you can get lost in that head of yours," the Headmaster replied. The older man had mentioned that the Potions master was his brother at some point, but John hadn't retained it as he should have. The taller man stepped into the room, pulling his robes closer to him as he did. "I've brought a guest with me, Sherlock. If you're not going to show me a bit of hospitality, do pay attention to the newest addition to our staff."

There were several moments of awkward silence--on John's part, anyway--where the Potions master did nothing but work away at his brew. John watched the man's shoulders move as he reached across his worktop for different ingredients, the bunching of his robes when he chopped a particularly tough ingredient. There was a light sheen of sweat on the back of his neck that sparkled in the light of the two torches posted on the walls. 

"Sherlock, this is John Watson," the Headmaster said after a few more strange, silent moments. There was no loss of patience in his tone. John wasn't sure there had been patience to begin with. "He's going to be--"

The Potions master turned suddenly and brushed his hands together. Long, narrow fingers sent small bits of whatever they'd been chopping to the floor. "Head of the Infirmary, yes, clearly." He eyed John up and down for a moment, taking him in. Blue eyes found his own green ones and held him for a moment, sending a short flutter through him.

John raised his eyebrows and looked at Headmaster Holmes, about to question if he had already announced his intention to hire the healer, but the Potions master interrupted him. 

"You are here six weeks after Madame Pomfrey's none-so-surprising retirement. That was one of the main positions open on staff that needed to be filled before start of term in six days. The other positions that were open would not have anything to do with me, however, if you are to take a place as a medical professional at Hogwarts, it is given that you will, at times, have to work closely with me. Thus, my dear brother saw it fit to introduce us immediately following your acceptance of the position in order to begin that working relationship."

"Of course, you're quite right, brother, but Professor Watson will also be filling the role of--"

"Head of Hufflepuff house," the other man threw back. It was like watching a tennis match on Muggle telly. John never knew how one would outdo the other, but he was certainly learning to expect it. 

Still, he was intrigued. None of this information was public, nor had he told anyone he was being considered for the positions. He was sure that the dark-haired man would inform him of how he knew in just a moment, as soon as the Holmes brothers were through with their glaring. Those high cheekbones looked positively sharp in the dim lighting, as if he could cut through his brother with a single twist of his neck. 

The Potions master approached him, appearing amiable to an introduction and completely ignoring his brother's nearness. 

"Sherlock Holmes," he said, reaching out with his left hand. John returned the handshake with his name, grasping the other man's palm firmly. A surprising warmth radiated through his fingers at the touch, tingles that heated him in the cool room. He drew his hand away and tucked it into the satin-lined pocket of his robes. 

"You carry your neck and shoulders like a Hufflepuff," the other man said, his tone even and not insulting the way some tended to be when speaking about the Badgers. He had clasped his hands behind his back and was eyeing John the way a curious puppy might observe a new sound. "Your face is also expressive, but guarded. Too much so to be a Gryffindor, and you don't have the eyes of a Ravenclaw." John hadn't known they all had particular looks, but he didn't quip. "Of course, your biggest tell was the state of your knees."

"My knees?" John asked, his mouth quirking. "What can you tell from my knees?"

"Your lot are the sentimental type-- _loyal._ You're back in this castle for the first time in however many years, offered a job at Hogwarts doing almost the same thing you've been doing at St. Mungo's for most of your adult life. You could have been scrubbing floors in the Infirmary, but there isn't that particular sort of dust down there. No, you've paid a visit to your old common room--loyalty as much as curiosity to see what's changed. Your knees still have a bit of the dust from where you crawled in. It's been so long since you've been there, you're out of practice with having to do a simple cleaning spell the way the first years are taught on their first night." 

John stared, his lips parted. It was a long moment before he managed anything, and when he did, all he could say was: "That was bloody fantastic."

Sherlock looked surprised. A smug smile settled on his lips, eyes flickering to his brother before settling back on John. "Really?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," John replied, still faintly dumbfounded that the man had gotten all of that out without pausing for breath. And also that it had come from mere moments with John in his line of sight. 

"That's not what people usually say."

"What do they usually say?" 

"Piss off."

John could imagine himself saying it to the other man someday--he didn't think it would be hard for the fellow in front of him to damage the sensibilities of those around him. If these short moments were anything to go by, John was certain he'd be working with someone fascinating. 

He just hoped he wasn't too plain in comparison.

***

"Please excuse my brother, Mr. Watson, he isn't fond of guests... Or me, though I'm certain you gathered as much," the Headmaster said sometime later. They'd returned to his office to finalize a few things--signatures, agreements, the lot. "If left to it, I believe he would stay down there in that classroom for months on end if I didn't venture to drag him out regularly."

"He does seem a bit like that sort. How is he with students, if you don't mind my asking?" The Headmaster raised an eyebrow, making John feel out of line, so he quickly added, "I just meant that when I was a student, we were all terrified of Professor Snape. He was brilliant, but commanding."

Mycroft Holmes leaned back in his chair for a moment. "He expects a lot from his students. Doesn't suffer anything less than brilliance. Rose Weasley, for example, is one of his most prized students. You'll surely meet her--her brother Hugo is a mischief maker and spends quite a bit of time in the infirmary. She'll be a prefect this year for Gryffindor."

It was strange to hear about the children of war heroes John had once walked the corridors with; fought alongside at the tender age of 13. So few of the third years had managed to stay behind for the Battle, and of those who had, very few had been lucky enough to make it out in one piece. 

"I suspect you won't have any trouble finding your chambers. You'll be down by the Hufflepuff common room, just a bit down the hall. Your fire place has a direct connection to the Infirmary. Should you require anything else, the house elves will be happy to oblige you." The Headmaster picked up a quill on his desk, making John sure that the conversation was over. 

An hour later, he had settled himself into his plush new chambers and was happily sinking into a rather comfortable armchair by the fire when a house elf appeared in the center of the room with a _pop_. 

"Pinky has a message for Professor Watson," the elf said, holding out a piece of folded parchment in her hand. 

_Surely no one's caught their death or broken any bones already,_ John mused as he stood to take the parchment. "Thank you. Pinky, was it?" 

The elf nodded. "You're welcome, sir." 

Before he could unfold the note, she was gone.

_The Potions classroom. Come at once, if convenient. -SH_

John looked at the flourish on the initials for a moment. He was about to stuff the note in his pocket and be on his way when another elf appeared in front of him.

"Effie has a note for Professor Watson," she announced with a small curtsy. Her wide, grey eyes looked up at him expectantly. When he hesitated, she held out her note again. 

John eyed her curiously before taking the offered parchment.

_If inconvenient, come anyway. -SH_

A small smile crept over his lips. The elf disappeared and John turned to his quarters, surveying his room in this castle he'd come to call home all those years ago. He didn't know what Sherlock Holmes wanted from him, but this was what he'd missed during all of his training and time at St. Mungo's: the thrill of being in the castle, no matter what it had to offer him.

He rubbed at his shoulder for a moment and put out the fire with a wave of his wand. 

It was certainly shaping up to be an interesting first day back at Hogwarts.


	2. Could Be Dangerous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John pays a visit to the Potions classroom. He didn't know what to expect, but it certainly wasn't this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so maybe updates won't just be on Saturday.

John rapped his knuckles against the uneven wood of the classroom door. It pulled itself open a moment later, but there was no one on the other side to greet him. 

Somehow, he hadn't expected a personal welcome. 

Sherlock Holmes was sitting at the front of the classroom, sitting with his feet on his chair. His fingers were steepled beneath his chin, knees against his chest. "You look surprised to be here, though I'm not sure why you would, as you were invited, unlike most who cross that threshold."

The room was warmer than it had been in the early afternoon, though John wasn't sure where that extra heat was coming from. No potions were brewing, and the torches on the sides of the room seemed to be dimmer than they had been. The dark stone walls looked more cavernous than he remembered from his childhood; more haunting. 

Unless the castle had had radiators installed in the last twenty years, he doubted he'd find the source of the warmth. 

"Have you got a quill?" Sherlock asked, fingers moving out in front of him as though he were ready to take up a quill and start writing. Both he and his brother seemed to be adept at wandless magic in a way that John had never had a talent for--a roll of parchment unfolded itself in front of the professor without so much as a flick of his wrist. 

John watched as the parchment settled onto the desk with a quiet rustling. The desk was awash in chaos; John silently wondered if the professor's notes would ever be seen again after he wrote them. 

"A quill?" John repeated. He stepped further into the classroom, his shoes tapping along hard stone that had always been a bit damp. The castle was full of memories, seemingly sprouting up with every step. He felt childish again, stepping forward toward an almost imposing shadow. 

Almost thirty years later, he was coming full circle--approaching a Potions master as a colleague.

"Mmm, a quill. Writing implement, generally of the feathered sort," Sherlock replied, looking almost bored. "I snapped the nib on mine a moment after sending the elf." He leaned back in the low chair he'd been crouched in and stretched out his legs in front of him. His face faded back into the shadows behind his desk, gone from the flickering candles on his tabletop. 

"Did you honestly send for me just to fetch you a quill? And I haven't, by the way. Got one." John leaned against one of the work stations. Everything was still clean. In eight days, the place would be covered in slime and toad eyes from failed attempts at brews. 

John knew firsthand; he had once been that inexperienced ponce who thought he could master a simple cure for boils on his first shot. 

All he'd succeeded in shooting was his Potions grade: it skyrocketed downwards and barely recovered prior to Professor Slughorn's reign as Potions master. 

Now he still wasn't so good at the more advanced stuff, but at least he'd managed to score well enough on his O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s that he was permitted to train at St. Mungo's as a Healer. And that was what he was meant to go to Sherlock for--the potions he wasn't quite so adept at himself. 

"You could transfigure one. You Healer-types always have excellent Transfiguration skills."

"And you couldn't?"

"Tedious." Sherlock's lips formed the word coldly, as if he truly believed transfiguring a bat wing into a quill for his own use would be a useless task. 

He didn't seem to mind taking John's time to do it, though, and he tossed an unsteady flap of black his way. 

The Healer caught it in his fingers, cringing at the awkward texture of fuzz and thick membrane that seemed to cling to his fingers. Bats had never been one of his creatures of choice. They weren't that interesting--they were all over the Muggle world--and they had such a bad reputation in most cases that John avoided them. 

Not to mention the fact that he wasn't fond of having animal parts tossed at him by strangers. 

"You caught that with your right hand," Sherlock noted after a short period of silence. 

"I did." John wanted to comment that the professor was losing his touch; it was a bit obvious. 

"But you're obviously left handed," the dark-haired man said.

"I'm sure you're going to tell me how you know that," John said. He didn't mean it in poor spirit. When the other man stood from his desk and walked around it, John nearly braced himself for the flood of words he was expecting. 

Sherlock Holmes didn't disappoint. 

"The same way I know that you're a Muggle-born with dead parents and a nonmagical sibling. You were also injured during the Battle of Hogwarts, for which you stayed behind out of loyalty to your school, even though you'd been ordered to safety. Your left shoulder, yes?" 

Sherlock stepped closer, reaching up a hand as though he was going to touch the shorter man, but then he drew his hand away, clasping his fingers behind his back. 

"Earlier today, you didn't notice that you reached for your wand when I turned on you. Instinct, left over from a time when you'd had to defend yourself around every corner. The Carrow reign, then. You aren't a natural soldier, but you will fight when threatened, the same way the rest of your House would. Your wand pocket is sewn into the right side of your robes, indicating that your dominant arm is the left, however, the fact that you caught that bat wing with your right tells me that you needed to learn to use it, and still do on occasion. Why would you need to use a different dominant hand? Injury. Traumatic injury at a young age, and I'll bet you spent your last years at Hogwarts on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, where you played with your right arm." 

Sherlock took a breath, quirking one eyebrow as if to say 'How am I doing so far?' before continuing. 

"You keep that shoulder slumped forward, just a bit, as if it pains you to keep it back in line, yet when you are being addressed, you stand at attention, even though it hurts you to after a time. And right now, you know that you could turn that bat wing into a quill with a wave of your wand, so why haven't you yet?" 

He felt like he had to pick his jaw up off the floor, but still John complied with the request. He drew out his wand (from, of course, the inside right pocket) and waved it at the bat wing with a flourish and quiet enchantment. 

A long, black quill transformed between his fingers and he held it out. Pale fingers brushed his own as they took the ebony feather. John whetted his lips and held his breath when the Potions master stepped away, running the end of the feather along his knuckles as he turned back to his desk. 

"I am working on a case for the Ministry," Sherlock said, settling back behind his work station. He touched the tip of the silver nib into his inkwell and started to scribble on his parchment. With his other hand, he held out the _Daily Prophet_ to his guest and tapped the front page twice when John looked down. "A series of what appear to be suicides, but I believe them to be murders."

John's eyes scanned over the article. Third apparent suicide, potion taken in the dead wizard's bedroom, no suicide note. It was strange that they were all similar, but he didn't see how someone could kill three people without any struggle. The article explicitly stated that there were no signs of an Unforgivable; no cause for concern. 

Then again, John knew firsthand that the _Prophet_ sometimes stretched the truth for the sake of keeping calm. 

"Exactly," Sherlock said. 

"You do know that I didn't say anything out loud, yes?" John was a mite uncomfortable. He hadn't ever been around anyone with _that_ particular ability. Legilimency was a rare talent, one John had yet to encounter in his 37 years. 

He hoped that the raven-haired man hadn't been able to tell that-- _no, don't think about it, or he'll know right out._

"I can't read your mind, John, but your thoughts are written on your face. You don't see how anyone could force three different people to take a deadly potion. Neither do I, but I'm going to figure it out." 

He ran the feathery end of his new quill along his bottom lip. 

John tried not to think about how that had been a bat wing not five minutes ago. 

"We're going to the Three Broomsticks," Sherlock announced suddenly. His chair nearly flipped back with the speed at which he stood. 

Before John could question anything further, the man was pulling on a dark blue scarf that wasn't particularly in season in the late summer, but John didn't have time to say anything. He was being pulled by the sleeve of his robes out into the hall and down the corridor. Their footsteps echoed off stone, almost making it sound as if they were being followed.

He watched the midnight-blue-black of Sherlock's robes swirl behind him as he hurried away. He wondered if is own flared about as dramatically. And then he wondered:

"And why am I going with you?"

They were through the door to what John had to assume were Sherlock's private quarters. He was pulled through the clutter and somehow appropriate mayhem, not released until they approached the hearth. 

The Potions master waved his hand, waking the fire to a clear light, and reached for an uncapped jar that was resting below a--yes, that was a real, actual human skull. He took a handful of glittering powder and tossed it into the fire, turning it a bright emerald that danced on his dark robes and pale skin. 

He turned back, facing John with clear eyes that reflected the steady watercolor of the fire behind him, slowly surrounding him as he stepped back into the fireplace. 

"Could be dangerous." One corner of his mouth twisted up in a smile before he said "Hogsmeade" and disappeared in a blaze of green flames. 

John looked around at the chaos of the room. Sherlock Holmes's private quarters, and he'd just left a complete stranger alone. 

Private chambers.... It couldn't possibly be right that this man had a direct line to Hogsmeade in his chambers. Then again, he was the Headmaster's younger brother. But should John already be risking so much trouble? It was his first day. He'd only met this madman four hours ago. 

_Could be dangerous._ The words bounced around in his mind, echoing in a deep cadence. Could he let Sherlock go off on his own in search of someone who had already killed three people?

John reached for the Floo powder. When he set the jar back down, he raised his fistful of silver dust to the skull. "Wish me luck, then."


	3. A Flare for Dramatics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock looks for a common thread and John learns the true meaning of Hufflepuff loyalty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay this week. I was sick and then it was Easter, and holidays tend to mean I'm expected to socialize with my family. 
> 
> This was written entirely on my iPad, so any and all errors can be blamed entirely on ~~Apple~~ me.

He was barely a moment behind Sherlock, and when he saw the other man hurdling himself down the street, he hurried himself to keep up. Sherlock's robes were still slightly sooty--he hadn't bothered with the simple spell he'd chided John about earlier in the day. 

John caught up to him just outside the Three Broomsticks. He licked his lips and tried to catch his breath, panting quietly behind the other man for a moment before setting himself upright. When Sherlock pushed open the door, John followed. Even though the inn was crowded with an evening rush, they were greeted and sat immediately at a table that faced out to the calmer street outside. 

"I know the keeper here," Sherlock said while John settled himself. "Order anything you fancy. It'll be on the house."

John tucked himself in to the table and had barely had time to glance around before an overflowing mug of Butterbeer was being placed on the table by a very large, very imposing looking gentleman wearing a bar apron. 

"Sherlock Holmes!" the man cried, clapping his hands together and looking between the two men at the table. "You didn't tell me you'd be bringing someone. Let me just get a candle for the table. It will be more romantic." He was gone, leaving a cheeky wink at John in his wake. 

"I'm not his..." John let the sentence trail off when he realized it would fall on dead air. When the keeper returned with the candle seconds later and lit it by pinching the wick, John stared for a moment longer than was perhaps necessary. 

"I'll bring out something for the pair of you, don't you worry." He was gone before John could request anything particular. Oh well, pub food was pub food no matter which pub one frequented. And the Three Broomsticks had never let him down before. 

"So... Your family are pure-bloods, then?" John asked, just wanting to make polite conversation. Maybe Sherlock would be impressed that he'd made such a simple observation. People these days weren't quite as obsessed with blood status as they had been in the past, but it was still a relevant talking point. 

Sherlock tore his eyes away from the window only long enough to give John a look that told him he'd had no such luck. The other man would not even humor such an observation with an audible response. 

"Have you got any other friends at the castle?" John asked. It wasn't until he finished the sentence that he realized he'd lumped himself into the friend category already. "Or a girlfriend?"

Sherlock's eyes flicked away from the window. There was a faint echo of firelight from the candle as he looked at John, and then he turned his attention back to the street. "Girlfriends are... Not really my area."

 _Oh._ "A boyfriend, then?" John paused, licking his lips subconsciously before adding, "Which would be fine, by the way."

"I know it's fine," Sherlock replied, eyes darting from the almost murky windows to John's face and then back again as they had a moment ago. 

He didn't offer any more of an answer than that, and an awkward moment later, a plate of food as set down in front of John, along with a second mug of Butterbeer. John picked up his fork and knife, taking a small bite of some kind of seasoned chicken before turning and following Sherlock's line of sight out the window. The light inside was a bit low for the evening, and outside, the street lamps were casting a dull ray back at Sherlock's angular face. John had turned back and was tracing Sherlock's cheekbones with his eyes when the other man focused on him sharply. 

"Who would you trust enough to allow them into your bedroom?"

John nearly choked on his chicken. "Pardon?"

"All the victims were found in their bedrooms. They hadn't been under any kind of curse, and there were no signs of force. They all went willingly, but they had no acquaintances in common. There has to be a common thread, and I'm going to find it. But I have to narrow down the field."

"I don't know," John said. "Could be that's why I became a Healer rather than an Auror. Not much into the mysteries, me."

Sherlock's eyes brightened and he stood, suddenly, drawing his robes around himself. 

"The common thread." 

John put down his fork, regretful that he'd only had three bites before Sherlock had solved the mystery, and was about to ready himself for a criminal chase through Hogsmeade (he was far too old for his) when Sherlock held up a hand to stop him. 

"You stay behind," Sherlock said. His eyes searched the room for a moment, and John couldn't help thinking that the other man looked like a giraffe, towering above everyone else in the room, neck craning. "Angelo!" he called when he spotted the keeper. 

Angelo perked up and, after setting down a plate at a table where the woman was wearing a gigantic, pointed hat, approached them with clasped hands. 

"I require your flare for the dramatics," Sherlock said simply.

John watched as the two men bustled off toward the door, Sherlock speaking animatedly, but quietly. Only a step or two from the exit, the taller man stumbled into the other so convincingly that John moved on instinct, only stopping himself on principle of instruction. 

The man called Angelo held Sherlock up with one arm and flung the door open with the other, shouting out into the street for a Healer while John watched in tense confusion, turning to the window to follow the action. Surprisingly, very little attention had been drawn to the scene, but Angelo and Sherlock were proving to be convincing actors. Sherlock slipped further down to the ground, his expensive robes getting sullied by the footpath of Hogsmeade. It wasn't until he was on the ground that a man approached, crouching down in the dim lighting and helping Angelo with the seemingly incapacitated patron. 

John didn't recognize the man in the worn brown cloak, but when Sherlock flung one arm haphazardly around the man's shoulders, he suspected that this man wasn't good news. Or maybe he was meant to lead the would-be detective to the poisonous murderer. 

They stumbled off down the road clumsily, and John watched them disappear into the evening. He stood a few indecisive moments later, brushing nonexistent crumbs from his lap. He found Angelo not far from the door and tapped him on the shoulder. 

"Uh," he started when the man turned toward him. Angelo just smiled. 

"I owe that man my life," the larger man said, looking like he was about to get lost in memories. "I would've gotten The Kiss if he hadn't been able to prove I didn't--"

"Did he say where he was going?" John interrupted before the full story could come out. He didn't care much, but he would've been lying if he said that he wasn't concerned about watching the Potions master disappear into the night with a stranger. 

Then again, that's exactly what both of them had done when they'd come to Hogsmeade. 

"He does that often, he does," Angelo said, looking at the door and resting a heavy hand on John's left shoulder. John winced a bit at the unsolicited pressure to his childhood injury. "You'll just have to get used to it if you're going to be hanging 'round Sherlock Holmes."

Someone called to Angelo from the kitchen before John could protest against the knowing twinkle in the keeper's eye. 

John resigned himself and headed out the door, thankful he didn't need to worry about paying for a meal he wasn't going to get to enjoy.

***

The streets of Hogsmeade were practically deserted, which surprised John more than he expected it would. There were a few late-goers strolling along the cobblestone, but other than that, most people seemed to have cozied themselves inside the pubs and whichever shops were still open. 

John supposed it was possible that Sherlock and his supposed Healer had disappeared into one of the many buildings to make use of the Floo, but how was he supposed to follow? Then again, he wasn't even sure he was _meant_ to follow. 

That is, until he saw a hat at the end of the walkway, just at the entrance to the woodlands. It was the brown, woolen hat that the Healer had been wearing when he'd helped Sherlock off the ground. Like a Muggle faerie tale, Sherlock was leaving him a trail.

He was meant to be following that madman into the woods. 

Next came Sherlock's scarf, soft cashmere in Ravenclaw blue with a dull silver striped throughout. He tucked it into one of his pockets and followed the walking trail until he recognized the area. 

The Shrieking Shack loomed large in front of him, signs warning every dozen feet against trespass. But that clearly didn't stop Sherlock, and John continued past the wire fences and up the dirt path to the almost swaying house. He drew his wand when he got closer and saw that one set of footprints had been dragged rather than steps taken. 

The entire place was creaking and John wondered how far behind the pair of them he was. Five minutes? Ten? He hadn't been rushing because he assumed Sherlock had control over the situation, but how much control had been real and how much of an upper hand could the mysterious man have gained? Surely Sherlock's collapse had been a ruse to gain the attention of--

Oh. 

A common thread. A stranger people allowed into their houses. The faked ailment. 

A Healer. A _murderous_ Healer. 

John crept farther into the house, watching the floor for loose boards and praying that no one would hear him before he was ready to be discovered, if such a time came. He imagined that if this man was dangerous, it was best to maintain the element of surprise. 

The stairs were the trickiest bit. It seemed that a good portion of them had collapsed in the years since the Shack had held purpose, and John didn't know how to get up them silently short of a self-levitation spell, which had potential to go terribly wrong if he let himself down a bit too harshly, as he was prone to doing with such spells. It was easiest when someone else cast one on him. 

He took his chance with a mind-cast silencing charm aimed at the staircase. He wasn't sure it would work, but his first step onto the rickety wood was silent save for the pounding of his own heart, and John breathed quietly with a sharp rasp as he moved slowly from one broken piece of ply to the next. 

At the top, there was a short corridor with a pair of rooms on either side. None of the rooms made a sound, but John didn't trust the silence. He peered into each one through dark cracks until he found one with a faint flicker of light that seemed unnatural to his eyes. 

He supposed it was a talent left over from the war, being able to see through certain security charms. He'd had to train himself at a young age to look through enchantments, it was one of the things that had made him so talented as a Healer--he could see through a lot of magic in ways that many others couldn't. His fingers pushed lightly at the door, giving him a bit more room to see. It wasn't as though he could see directly through an enchantment; far from it. He could see the faint edges of shapes in the room, though, and that was often enough. 

John's eyes focused, trying to make out the figures in the dim lighting, trying to force his mind to turn the hazy, drunken images it perceived into sharp, actual human beings. If he reached out to touch it, it was possible that he would break through it and that wouldn't be good for either him or Sherlock, if this man was dangerous--which was more and more likely as time went on. 

Which brought John to a decision: did he leave Sherlock alone and assume he had control over the situation or did he barge in and risk making things worse? 

John closed his eyes. If he couldn't see, maybe he could focus himself to hear what was going on inside the bubble. 

Slowly, sounds not unlike dreaming ghosts began to waver by his ears.

"Go on," an almost gruff voice that wasn't Sherlock's was saying. "Drink it. Fifty-fifty shot you're right."

That didn't bode well with John at all. His eyes snapped open and he stared through the crack he'd made in the doorway, trying to figure out the positions of the men in the room. He wanted to shout; he wanted to make his presence known; he wanted to summon the Aurors and get them here before Sherlock did something colossally stupid. 

_This is how he did it. He offered poison. But surely Sherlock can tell a poisonous potion from a false brew, can't he? Don't they call them Potions masters for a reason?_

John decided he couldn't risk it. This man had killed three people. He was justified. 

"And if you're wrong, well. It's just like going to sleep."

Completely justified. 

There was no time to even hear the body hit the ground after the Unforgivable was cast into the room. All he saw was Sherlock's fingers as they dropped the small vial they were wrapped around when the shield was broken by the death of its caster. 

John Apparated instantly, knowing the Aurors would be there almost instantly on the tail of the Curse. He didn't have time to check over Sherlock, he didn't have time for anything but self-preservation. 

For now, Sherlock was fine. That was all that mattered, anyway.

***

People always tended to gather when there was a commotion involving Aurors, and like a secret spreading through the walls of Hogwarts, the whisper of a cast Unforgivable just outside Hogsmeade was enough to draw a crowd along the wire fences of the Shrieking Shack. 

John watched as Sherlock spoke with an Auror just at the end of the path. The silver-haired man was offering Sherlock a heavy golden cloak to keep him warm, but the younger man kept trying to shrug it off. Finally, the Auror gave up and Sherlock walked away from him, ignoring the man's calls for him to return. Instead, his eyes focused on John's through the dark of the night and he approached his new colleague, stopping a step closer than personal boundaries normally allowed. 

"I'd ask you to get us back to Hogwarts, but I suppose you've lost your wand," Sherlock suggested innocently, eyes looking over John's head into the forest.

The wand was snapped into two pieces, each of them tossed in different directions in the woods. They wouldn't be traced back to him, even if the twigs were found. 

"Bad luck, that. Must've dropped it while I was chasing a madman Potions master through Hogsmeade."

Sherlock's mouth quirked upwards on the right side. "I'll see that you get a new one."

John shook his head. "I'll have time to pick one up tomorrow." He glanced over at the Aurors, wondering if he'd catch a glimpse of Potter or Weasley, but he didn't see either of their tell-tale heads. "Is this what you do, then?" he asked. "Risking your life to prove you're clever?"

"I knew you'd come eventually." 

"And if I hadn't?"

"I picked the right potion." Sherlock shrugged. 

"It's utterly mad. Completely dangerous." John stared up at that pale face, seemingly even whiter in the faint light from the Aurors' and spectators' wands. It was dimming now that people had gotten their fair share of the action and were returning to their night on the town. 

"I made that perfectly clear, yet here you are."

John smiled. "Come along, then," he said. "We're going back to the Three Broomsticks and you're having a proper meal, uninterrupted by murderous Healers."

"It was just the one," Sherlock said as they started down the barely visible path. Still, he drew out his wand to light their way and stayed just a step behind John. The Healer wondered if it was so he couldn't see the smile on the taller man's face, but he didn't turn around to spy.

***

"Professor Watson."

His name echoed off the walls, solitary in the late hour. The last time someone had said his name in that tone, he'd been sneaking out with Sarah Sawyer in his seventh year. 

He turned around and found Headmaster Holmes standing just a few feet behind him, as though he had materialized silently just after John had turned the corner.

"Headmaster." He inclined his chin toward the Headmaster, fearful for a moment that he was breaking some sort of curfew from the way the imposing man was looking at him. Then he realized he was being completely silly. Of course professors didn't have a curfew. 

"I understand you're to thank for saving my brother this evening." Mycroft Holmes stepped forward, and John was about to ask him how he knew, since Sherlock didn't seem like the type to go to his brother with such news from their short interaction earlier that very day--but the Headmaster interrupted him before he had a chance to speak. "Please, Professor, do not insult either of our intelligence by assuming that I know less than everything there is to know about my little brother and his well-being." He paused and held out a long, thin box toward John. 

"You'll find this to be a very near replica of your previous wand," the Headmaster explained. "Should it reject you or feel uncomfortable to you, please do not hesitate to let me know and I shall get you a replacement."

John stayed still, not reaching for the offered wand box. "Thank you, Headmaster, but I already planned to go to Diagon Alley tomorrow and fetch one myself."

"Consider it my thanks for saving my brother's life."

John had a niggling feeling in his stomach that Mycroft Holmes was not a man whose debt he wished to be in. He didn't say as much, but it must've painted itself across his face because Mycroft drew back the parcel and tucked it away into his robes. There was no offense in his sharp features, but he took a step back. 

"You're very loyal, very quickly, Professor Watson," the Headmaster said. It didn't sound like a warning or a threat. An observation, that was all. 

"That's my lot, I suppose," John answered. 

"Your lot, indeed." Mycroft tapped his wand against his left palm twice. "I suppose you've had a day and would like to rest. I'll leave you to your chambers. I hope you find them comfortable."

John watched the other man as he turned and walked away, his shoes clicking against the stones the same way his words had bounced off them only seconds ago. 

Yes, he had certainly had a day.


	4. No Rest for the Wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is very good at guessing simple passwords, the portrait to John's chambers is certainly not his house keeper, and Sally Donovan is Not a Fan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written on an iPad. All errors are my own.
> 
> Going up just a bit before Saturday because I have work alllllll day tomorrow.

The start of term actually went much more smoothly than John suspected it would. His nerves about seeing all the students, about his first emergency in the infirmary, about balancing his work and befriending the intolerable Sherlock Holmes--all were unfounded in actuality. 

After removing his robes down to a plain jumper and trousers, John settled into the plush, high-backed chair in front of his fire. It was a rare moment of calm, and he was taking advantage of it in order to evaluate the events of the last five weeks. The only thing that would make it better would be a cup of tea, but it he'd just come from a rather overambitious supper in the Great Hall and didn't think he could swallow a drop of even the most perfect brew. 

When he'd signed on as head of the infirmary and took responsibility for Hufflepuff House, he'd been petrified of the student aspect of his new career path. At St. Mungo's, he'd worked in their youth unit frequently, but that had been more out of station and necessity than preference. He didn't have anything against children--in fact, he was rather fond of them. It was just that the more time he spent around them, the more he ran into children of people who had once been his peers, and it made him feel terribly behind in the plans he'd once set for his life. 

Of course, he was being completely daft and he knew it. There was a huge baby boom after the war and the immediate years that followed were prime for people who had been a few years ahead of him.

Not to mention that John had never exactly found the proper partner to settle down and have children with, though it wasn't for lack of trying. He'd dated nearly every nurse at St. Mungo's, save for a few who were a bit too old (not that they hadn't offered) to catch his eye. 

The strangest by far, though, was meeting the Weasley children, which brought him to his second point of anxiety: his first emergency as Hogwarts's Healer. 

The Headmaster had been right in his prediction that it wouldn't be long before John met Hugo and Rose Weasley. The fifth year had practically been attached to her brother when he was levitated into the infirmary by a shocked looking Charms professor named Molly Hooper. 

"He kept getting the pronunciation wrong--" The nervous, young professor was picking at her plait while John surveyed the damage to the groaning young man in front of him. The boy was swelling rapidly, his robes expanding as though his entire body was inflating with water. 

His sister watched on with reproachful, yet interested eyes. 

"What spell were you working on?" John asked, tenderly touching the boy's left arm where the seams on his Gryffindor robes had just split.

"An engorgement charm--but I think he may have--" Her voice broke off with a small cry and she covered her mouth with her hand. 

The boy's skin had started leaking, a steady stream of water flowing out of every pore. 

Rose stepped back, just a moment short of standing in a stream that would've flooded her Mary Janes. 

"Is he going to be okay? Should I send word to my parents?" The red-haired teen watched as her brother stopped growing, his skin stopped stretching, and his robes began to cling to his girth as they soaked through with the water. 

"He'll be all right in a few hours," John said.

And he had been, though the entire hospital wing had been submerged under three inches of water by the time the boy's pores stopped seeping. It could've been worse--there could've been an odor rather than fresh water. 

Which brought him to his third worry: Sherlock Holmes. After killing a man to save his new friend after meeting him only hours before, John had been certain his life was about to become a whirlwind of crime fighting that he had never actually signed on for. 

But it wasn't, not really.

Sherlock was a madman, certainly. He stayed up until all hours, broke into John's chambers ("It's not breaking in if you keep making your passwords so _elementary_ "), and left hazardous potions ingredients strewn about in every nook he had to spare. John had come to expect waking to a summons from an elf, or to find that he was being called to the Potions classroom to bring a salve for third-degree burns the professor had inflicted on himself for the sake of his latest scientific venture. 

Somehow, it was an easy friendship to fall into. Most of the time, he didn't even feel like his privacy was being invaded. 

"Are you quite finished with your evening reflection?"

Except perhaps right now.

"How the bloody hell...?" John turned, stunned, to see the lanky professor laying across his couch, feet propped up against the end. His robes had fallen open and were strewn every which way, revealing his carefully pressed shirt and dark trousers.

How had he not noticed a six-foot-tall human being sprawled about on his couch when he'd come in the door? Or even in the moments after?

"I changed the password!" he protested, standing from his relaxing chair and crossing behind it to stand near the other man. He didn't know what he was achieving by standing like an angry mother with his hands on his hips, but it made him feel better, almost a little bit intimidating. 

"Honestly, John, changing the password from the already-unimaginative 'badger' to 'honey badger' should not actually count. It was insultingly easy to begin with, don't make it more so by tacking on identifiers." Sherlock sat up, robes righting themselves almost too fluidly, and tapped his fingers against the arm rest of the sofa.

"Right. Shall I just tell the portrait that you're not to be let in, even if you have a lucky guess of the password?"

He couldn't keep changing his passwords. He'd needed a new one every week now, and each time he told the elderly woman in his portrait that he'd need a new one, she'd say "I'm beginning to feel like your keeper, dear. Do stick with something." She'd even had the cheek to ask him if Sherlock was taking up residence in his quarters, since she knew he only had one bedroom.

He sighed. 

"Come now, John, you can't tell dear Mrs. Hudson not to do her job just because you can't come up with a creative password. What if I was an enemy?" Sherlock cocked his head and smiled almost alarmingly. "I'm truly doing you a favor by forcing you to be more careful."

"I am careful," John protested. "You're just a bloody mind reader."

Sherlock's smile faded quickly, a small shadow passing over his features. "We've gone over this before, John. I've not done any mind reading here."

The Hufflepuff sighed. "I'm sorry, I just expected to have a quiet night--I wasn't expecting that you'd be here. I was up half the night last night with a bunch of Slytherins who'd gotten it in their brains that it'd be a good idea to take a midnight fly by the Whomping Willow."

"Ah." Sherlock stood. "Then I suppose you're in no fit state to accompany me to the Ministry?"

"What business have you got there at this hour?" It was half nine, certainly no one was there at such an hour.

"Ah, well, no rest for the wicked, John." He smirked and reached into his robes. John noted the small satchel as Sherlock approached the fire. Oh, it was going to be one of those nights. One where John was expected to follow without question--or even to ask _when his fireplace had gotten connected to the Floo._

 _Yes,_ he thought as he watched the other man disappear in a haze of green. _One of those nights, exactly._

***

"You were at the Shrieking Shack." There was a woman leaning against the wall just before the corridor. She was eyeing him up and down, obviously making sure she recognized him. She had dark skin and a thick head of dark curls, and while she looked like she usually wouldn't be particularly threatening, John felt a very decisive sourness coming his way as she observed him. "I recognize you."

"Sorry?" John decided it'd be best to feign innocence. The fewer people who knew anything about his venture into the Dark Arts, the better. He could be very convincing when he needed to be; a skill from being under the terroristic teachings of the Carrows. 

"Give me your wand." She held out her left hand to him. He wondered if he was actually meant to comply, or if she was basing his willingness on his lack of knowledge about her person. 

Before John could argue with the woman--or even ask her for some kind of credentials--Sherlock had come up behind her, looming large over her like an oversized bat. He hadn't seen the other man since arriving at the Ministry. He was relieved he'd made the right choice in choosing to navigate himself toward the law enforcement offices. 

If Sherlock was happy to see him, he didn't show it, though that could've been the woman's presence. 

"Donovan, please leave Professor Watson alone. He's here as my guest." His voice was thick with something not unlike venom. John wondered if there were many people Sherlock Holmes _didn't_ have bad blood with. He'd already learned that Sherlock was at odds with the Head of Slytherin (a bloke called Anderson that John hadn't interacted with much just yet) and especially with Professor Binns, who taught History of Magic. 

Not to mention the regular influx of Howlers the man received in the Owl Post. No wonder Sherlock never wanted to attend meals. As soon as the owls came, it was like a bombardment of red envelopes that would all start shrieking parental gripes at the same time. 

John supposed it was a good thing that he had somehow ended up in Sherlock's good graces, though he didn't have a clue how he'd done it, just that he hope to stay there. 

"Your guest?" The woman--Donovan--laughed and looked back and forth between the two men. She drew her hand away from John, seemingly no longer caring about his wand, and pointed her thumb in Sherlock's direction. "Where did he get you from, then? Has he been following you 'round and then pulling you along like a lost dog?"

Sherlock's face was a thin set of apathetic angles. He inclined his head down the hall for John to follow before sweeping off with a sweeping rustle of his dark robes. 

Donovan grabbed John's arm when he moved to follow, holding him back. 

"Now you listen to me. I don't know what he's said to you or what he's making you do for him, but trust me: You do not want to be involved with Sherlock Holmes." She let go of his arm and then reached for his left hand, grabbing his wand and touching the tip with her thumb and forefinger. She seemed surprised when the tip glowed white--an Auror, then, testing for Unforgivables. "Do you know why he's here right now? Why he's dragged you out here so late?"

John didn't answer, just pulled his hand away. 

"A murder," she sneered. "He gets off on this--on going to crime scenes, seeing the bodies, touching them. He's a freak."

John started to walk away. He trusted himself to be able to make that judgement on his own. His friend was eccentric, but brilliant. If the Aurors consulted him on difficult cases, it was because they needed his fresh eyes, his expertise.

"The weirder the case, the more interested he is," she continued. Her voice only grew louder as he walked down the empty hall toward the open door of light Sherlock had disappeared into. 

"One day it won't be enough." Her voice was very nearly echoing now. "One day, we'll be standing around a body, and Sherlock Holmes will be the one who put it there."

John paused only a few feet from the entrance to the office Sherlock had entered. The sliver plate on the door announced it to be the office of: G. Lestrade, Head of Magical Law Enforcement. 

There was a whisper in the air, obviously courtesy of the woman he'd left behind, telling him to stay away from Sherlock Holmes. 

Instead, John entered the office confidently and with the knowledge that the younger man would have heard everything--and would see John's choice clearly in his face, the way he closely observed everything else.


	5. Why Would I Need You?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is a git, John has a rather relaxing bath, and Molly's new boyfriend pays a visit to Hogwarts's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay here! Carpal tunnel paid a visit and then my car died, so all my free time went into researching a new one. And then I spent some time on a PWP one-shot. 
> 
> No regrets!
> 
> Two updates this week to make up for it though, so hey, back on track on Saturday!

"You're a right git, you know that?" John asked as he spread a slimy glob of blue concoction over the gash at Sherlock's temple. 

They were in Sherlock's quarters and it was nearly dawn, but John was too high-strung on adrenaline to be worried about the fact that he'd be knackered all through his Monday morning duties. 

"I'd dropped my wand, I didn't have much of a choice." Sherlock, for his part, wasn't complaining about the stinging sensation the Healer knew he was experiencing. There had been a lot of blood after the fall, and John didn't think he'd ever felt his heart stop the way it stuttered to a halt when he watched his genius friend dive after a criminal off a building. 

"I'll implant it in your hand if that's what it takes to keep you from doing something like that again," John said. He picked up a dish with a damp flannel in it and gently pressed against the other man's hairline, carefully wiping away the blood that had caked against his skin. "You knew I'd be right behind you--"

"All the more reason not to let him get away," Sherlock huffed. "You're a competent Healer. I trusted you to fix whatever I'd broken." The look in those clear eyes, full of warmth and affection that was generally tucked away behind a cool demeanor, made John's heart flutter, entirely unwelcome. 

John's hand stalled and he swallowed silently, kicking down the not-uncommon fluttering before drawing back and checking on the wound. "How does it feel?"

"Like I cracked my skull against the cobblestones in Diagonal Alley."

"Ta," John replied, dipping the flannel in the dish again. The once clear water was stained with pink and the occasional spot of blue from the salve. "That's exactly what I was going for. It's the right side of 'Like I nearly died chasing a bloke who has been evading me for three weeks so I was in a mind to show him who's boss.'"

John wiped his fingers on the dry side of the flannel before touching it to his friend's head again. Sherlock initially leaned into the warmth, eyes closing, neck shifting, the way a cat would lean into a caress. John half expected him to start purring at the comfort of it and, while he didn't think Sherlock had noticed the affection, he found himself more inclined to stop chastising the man. 

Everything was fine. Yes, Sherlock had had a close call, but he'd had several in the time that John had known him. There were bound to be more. 

John just had to make sure he was there to catch him and, when he couldn't be, to pick up the pieces. 

"Do you need me to help you with getting to bed?" John asked, though he wasn't sure what help he could be. He didn't think the other man would be keen on being helped out of his robes and into the sheets. 

"Why would I need you?"

 _Because you could barely stand up straight when we got here and I'm sure your vision is blurred and I doubt you'll feel very good in the morning._ "No reason at all." John put the flannel back in the dish and stood. "I'll check in on you in the morning, then?"

"Mmm," Sherlock hummed, eyes still closed. 

John saw himself out.

***

He gave up on sleep two hours later. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw a billow of deep blue disappearing over the edge of the roof.

The sound of all the air being sucked in his chest and the dull thud from the other side of the building played for him whenever his chambers got too quiet. It didn't matter that he'd been able to fix cracked ribs with a wave of his wand, and it didn't make it better that he'd been able to stop the bleeding and guarantee that no scars would mar white skin.

He needed to do something; he wanted to see Sherlock, to make sure that the potions had fixed him the way they were meant to. 

He wanted to tell himself it was friendly concern, but there was something else pulling at his stomach, telling him that he wouldn't care this much about anyone else in his acquaintance. It had been coming on for a while, and he supposed he had known it without admitting it to himself, but it didn't make it any better. 

There still weren't enough words to explain it to himself; how he'd let this happen. 

John rolled over and stared at the wall. Endless shadows stared back at him, the darkness willing him to fall into sleep, but he knew it wasn't going to happen. He needed to be in the infirmary in an hour. Maybe a bath was what he needed to relax. 

And perhaps a quick wank. 

None of the other professors would be in the bath quite so early; he'd have all the privacy in the world to spare. He packed up clean robes into a little pack and headed toward the nearest bath chamber that was meant for professorial use. 

That was how, six hours after leaving the castle with Sherlock Holmes, John Watson found himself sinking down into the pool-sized bath that was filled with lavender bubbles. He leaned back against the side, sitting on the ledge under the water. It felt like the water was massaging him as it flowed through the pipes and into the tub. 

He scrubbed some of the bubbles into his shoulders, kneading them as best he could on his own. It had been so long since he'd been touched, it was easy to imagine his own hands as those of a partner. He squeezed his left shoulder, pressing his thumb into the phantom soreness of his childhood wound while simultaneously pressing four half moons into his back. He gave his right shoulder the same attention a moment later, craning his neck sideways and sliding his fingers up his neck, wet and soapy. 

It felt so good to take a few minutes to relax. He wasn't sure he'd taken any time for himself since coming to Hogwarts, not really. Moments sans Sherlock were rarer and rarer, though he hadn't paid it much mind. He enjoyed the other man's company; he liked being able to watch him work, even when Sherlock lost himself for days on end. 

He slipped further down into the water, tilting his head back and letting the suds dampen his hair before coming back up and letting his fingers slip through. As he massaged his scalp, he remembered a time an old girlfriend had washed his hair for him in a much smaller bathtub. The memory came to him as a fleeting thought, warmth pressed to his back in an uncommon role reversal, small hands slipping down his chest to touch him. 

John followed the curves of his mind, letting Mary's hands press against the curve of his hip, fingertips playing in the course curls just above his very interested cock. But then, just as quickly as his hand had conjured the image of Mary's small arms wrapped around him, those arms were pale, fingers long, and he could imagine the whisper of black curls against his temple. 

An unbidden sigh passed his lips when he took himself in hand below the water, giving texture to the heated warmth. Try as he might to go back to the familiar memory of the woman who had let him go years ago, John found that there was something more to be gained, an air of mystery in the unexplored fantasy of the Potions master's fingers. 

There was nothing wrong with wanking to the thought of a friend, John reasoned as he slowly stroked himself. As long as he had no delusions about anything happening between them, it was harmless. He wouldn't be throwing himself at Sherlock anytime soon. He couldn't help it if his mind was wandering toward the infuriating professor. 

He flicked his thumb over the head and used his other hand to dig fingers into his hip, easily slipping Sherlock behind him and into the fantasy, holding him steady to keep from thrusting upwards into those impossibly long, torturous fingers. 

It was almost too simple to conjure the feeling of Sherlock's heart-shaped mouth against the side of his neck, twisting to let the imaginative slide lips of torment him further. Teeth against his shoulder, _yes,_ Sherlock would be a nibbler, no question. That brought about a whole slew of mental images: standing in front of the mirror in the morning and trying to cover bruises on his neck, a knowing smirk while lips kissed purple fingerprints on his hips, the pleasant burn of teasing teeth on his nipples.

 _Merlin,_ John thought, snaking up a hand to pinch a peaked nipple between thumb and forefinger. He hadn't had a fantasy he couldn't control since he didn't know when. But every thought just brought more obscenities than he could imagine, more scenes he wanted to play out. More impossibilities. 

John hummed contentedly and allowed his hand to gain momentum under the water, small waves moving rhythmically. His hips canted upwards, now feeding from the wetness and the perfect heat of the bath. 

When he came into shaking fingers a moment later, it was with Sherlock's name bitten down on his lips and with fingers grasping uselessly under the water to pull an invisible head of dark curls down, down, begging for something deeper. 

He felt appalled with himself after, of course. While it was realistic to want to justify a friendly fantasy, it was unacceptable for him to bring himself off with the thought of his best friend's mouth around him. Or hands. Or... Other. 

Oh, he was well and truly fucked. 

Sherlock would know the Healer's dirty secret the moment he saw him. 

John toweled off and dressed for the day, ready to use the walk down to Sherlock's chambers as a ten-minute self-berating for so using his friend's trust. He tucked his things into a corner for the house elves to retrieve and, once he'd fastened his tie, he left the bath and headed down the hall. 

"You're up early, Professor Watson," came a feminine voice from down the hall. 

It was Molly Hooper, the sweet little Charms professor whose students seemed to be more incompetent than he remembered third years being in his time at Hogwarts. Every day, he had at least two instances of fire, and on one memorable day, a student had been frozen into a six-foot cube of ice by a peer. 

He supposed at this point it was sheer luck that no one had died or lost vital appendages.

Most of his interactions with her outside of the infirmary had doubly involved Sherlock, so he knew that she was quite enamored by him. However, now she was walking toward him, arm in arm with a skinny fellow wearing a set of night robes and brown slippers. Molly was similarly dressed, only she was mostly in pink.

They were heading toward the bath. 

"Good morning, Molly," John said when he was closer, nodding politely. 

"John, this is my boyfriend Jim," she said with a bright smile, looking up at the bloke like he owned the world and was offering her a key. "Jim works for the Ministry. He took a few days off to come see me."

John reached out a hand. "John Watson, head of the infirmary and Hufflepuff House."

Jim's hand was cold within his own and squeezed a little more tightly than John was expecting at half seven in the morning. It left his little finger just a bit sore, but he wasn't about to tell the smug-looking Ministry man that his handshake was too firm. 

"We were just going to have a bath before heading to breakfast," Jim said, and Molly blushed a bit and looked away from John's face toward the stone flooring. "I see you had the same idea."

There was something about the glint in Jim's dark eyes that made John feel like the man knew something, like he was accusing him outright of having a wank while thinking about his best friend. 

But that was ridiculous. Sherlock was the only one who could read minds. And he couldn't even actually _do it._

Merlin's balls, was it written on his face?

"Well, I'll let you be on then. I have a patient to check up on before I can start the rest of my day." John inclined his head down the hall, ready to get away from the subtle awkwardness as soon as possible. 

"Sherlock?" Molly asked, ever eager to bring up her favorite subject. Jim must not have been too serious a boyfriend, then. 

"Isn't it always?" He nodded his goodbye, ignoring the small smirk that played on Molly's boyfriend's lips. 

And so his self-imposed guilt trip began.


	6. The Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose Weasley is a know-it-all, Sherlock has no feelings, and John can't seem to stay out of trouble.

"What do you smell, Miss Weasley?" came Sherlock's almost-bored drawl through the open classroom door.

John peered around the corner and saw Rose Weasley step forward, pulling her plait around one shoulder, visibly proud to be the pupil called upon by the impossible-to-please professor. She set her notebook down to one side of the cauldron, which was stirring itself while small puffs of smoke curled out of its mouth.

"It smells like..." She took a whiff and closed her eyes, focusing on the odor of the potion, and John didn't know all that much about potion making, but he had a hunch that inhaling fumes was never a very good idea. As such, he was on edge for a moment while the girl contemplated the scent, partly expecting her to keel over. "It smells like copper, fresh parchment, and..." She closed her eyes for a moment before opening them. "Damp. I don't know how to describe that."

John looked to Sherlock for confirmation of what the girl was inhaling and saw a small smirk play at the corner of his lips.

"Another volunteer, please," he said, eyes scanning along the classroom as Rose Weasley returned to her seat, looking defeated. God, she was just like her mother. 

A boy toward the front stood and approached, leaning over the cauldron and taking a deep breath. He didn't look as confident as the ginger girl, but who would be after a dismissal as she'd received? 

"Pumpkin pie?" the boy questioned. "And... Um." He turned around to Sherlock and shook his head, heading back to his seat, where he sank down and blushed furiously. 

"Miss Weasley, what potion is this?" Sherlock asked without looking at her. John found her again and saw that she had opened her book and, somehow, managed to find the page with the potion they were studying. 

"Amortentia, Professor Holmes," she replied readily. 

"Please explain it to your classmates."

Instantly, the girl was standing at the front of the classroom, leaving her book behind at her seat. She spoke animatedly, using her hands as if she was flipping through vast notes on the subject. "Amortentia is the most dangerous potion in the world, or noted as such, because it is a powerful love potion that causes short-term, obsessive infatuation. It is illegal to use the potion worldwide without written permission from local authorities."

John wondered if she knew her own father had been a victim of a stolen phial of the potion while he was in school. At least, that's what rumors had said. 

"Quite right, Miss Weasley. You may return to your seat."

The girl beamed up at her professor until the end of the block, when Sherlock announced that their assignment was to go and find him three other closely-regulated potions that affected the mind in favor of the person administering the potion. 

The students filed out past John and he entered the classroom while Sherlock cleared away the potion, disposing of it properly to keep any students from getting the wrong idea. It was smart. The last thing the school needed was a bunch of randy teenagers administering love potions to their fancy of the week. 

"What do you smell, then?" John asked, though he didn't expect an answer. Sherlock probably didn't smell a thing; the man was celibate as a rock. 

John, who was still angry at himself for his morning wank the day before, couldn't say as much. 

The look John received from the professor was clearly one of the "I am not on such a low level" variety. 

John wondered for a moment what he'd smell now if he gave it a whiff. When he was sixteen, he'd smelled the leather of his Quidditch gear, the hair of the girl he'd fancied at the time, and the home-cooked macaroni his mother made when he was home on holiday. But things changed, obviously. He couldn't even remember the girl's name, his mother was dead, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd had Quidditch gear that fit him. 

The potion was gone. He'd never know. 

Nor did it matter much, anyway. 

"I think the Weasley girl fancies you," John noted, leaning against one of the work stations. It was nearly lunchtime, so Sherlock was through with classes for the next two hours. He had been hoping to convince the Potions master to replenish some of the stock for the infirmary. 

"Tedious." 

"I need a few things for the infirmary," John said, pulling out the short list he'd made on a spare bit of parchment. "I was hoping to have them by the end of the day, since Molly's got her rowdy bunch later and I'm expecting boils."

Sherlock waved a hand dismissively and walked to the front of the classroom, turning and leaning against his desk. "She's been distracted lately. Domesticity--she's gained three pounds in the last few weeks thanks to a new boyfriend who is likely a closeted homosexual."

John furrowed his brow. "How could you possibly know that?" 

"Come now, John, it doesn't take a genius to tell that her measurements have gone up about the waist--"

"I meant about the boyfriend. I met him, he didn't seem off at all." He refrained from adding "Though my brain was still a little muddled from a lovely, homoerotic wank."

"Ah, Jim. Primarily in the product he uses in his hair, though there are other tells. Personal grooming, for example, and the way he keeps his nails perfectly manicured." Sherlock pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and signed it with the very same raven quill John had transfigured him the day they'd met. 

"What's that, then?" 

"Nothing that concerns you," Sherlock said before folding the paper between his thumb and middle finger and snapping, sending the paper into a puff of green smoke and yellow sparks. "But if you must know, Amortentia is closely monitored by the Ministry." His tongue practically dripped acid over the words "closely monitored." "They demand its dangers be included in the curriculum, but when one has to have it for practical reasons, there is a form that must be submitted before its brewing and after its disposal. It's a tedious bit of paperwork, but it keeps them from prying further than they need."

"They actually let you brew the stuff?" John remembered when he was in school, they'd been told there wasn't even a public set of ingredients for the potion.

"Rumor has it there is a pool-sized cauldron of the stuff inside the Ministry, but it surely isn't brewed as skillfully as I'm capable of. They aren't aware that I brewed it, but if they can't deduce that from my disposal notice, they're worse off than I'd hoped." A small smile played on the corner of Sherlock's lips. "Now, I believe you were going off to lunch or some other pointless human endeavor. I have work to attend to, so if you wouldn't mind."

The "bugger off" was implied in the way Sherlock turned away and stalked off toward his desk. John would have been offended if he wasn't so used to it by now; by Sherlock's need to delve into his "mind palace" while working on a case. 

The professor settled himself into his high-backed chair the same way he always did: feet on the cushion, knees under his chin, fingers steepled. He was off in his own little world in the span of a breath. 

He excused himself wordlessly and headed for the Great Hall, considering Sherlock's state of mind as he did so. They had been working on a case for Lestrade for several weeks, a case that had so far nearly gotten Sherlock killed on six different occasions, the most recent being the fall from a rooftop in Diagon Alley. Three suspects had thus far been apprehended, but John could tell Sherlock was getting reckless in his frustration. 

"It's a game," the professor had told him several nights ago. "He's trying to make me dance, but I'm going to figure out how to lure him out. It's just a bit of fun to him, so I need to play his game."

"Is that such a good idea?" John had countered. "To taunt someone who has killed four people by basically becoming the mouse and saying 'Here, kitty kitty'?"

But in the end, Sherlock was going to do what he was going to do.

And for the moment, John was going to get lunch and hope that Sherlock didn't do anything stupid between now and the next time he saw him. A nice treacle tart was safe, a bit of pumpkin juice was safe, the company of his fellow staff members was safe. 

He should have known it wouldn't last long.

***

John was surprised he didn't hear from Sherlock for the rest of the day. He actually got a mite concerned around ten when there was nothing from the eccentric professor, but he decided that it was possible Sherlock had taken a much needed break from his case. Perhaps the man would actually sleep; John wasn't sure when the last time Sherlock had closed his eyes for more than a blink was.

So he was sort of expecting the house elf when it appeared twenty minutes later. 

"Professor Sherlock Holmes asked Miffy to remind Professor Watson that he has rounds tonight on the seventh floor, sirs." 

This was news to John, as he couldn't remember being scheduled for rounds so far away from his usual haunt--or at all that night, to mention it--but it wasn't uncommon for Sherlock to pass things off on him so he could sit in his chambers and stare at decaying frog eyes in slug slime or whatever his latest atrocity was. 

John sighed and dressed again. He didn't like wandering about the castle in his night robes--had always considered the professors who did so to be just a tad unprofessional--and set off for the seventh floor.

Each professor was assigned different wings and floors to patrol, though it was generally closer to the professor's own quarters, so that when their shift ended, they would be free to retire. Not to mention that the castle was so large, there were still parts of it John hadn't had chances to explore. 

He paced around the hallways, listening on guard for necking students, impromptu duels, and the like. He'd only had to break up one or two of the above since returning to the castle. To be honest, he'd turned a blind eye on more than one occasion. 

Where could a Romeo and Juliet romance like that of the Gryffindor Head Boy and Sytherin Head Girl go if they couldn't escape to quiet shadows in the dead of night?

"Healer Watson?" came a voice from behind him in those very shadows. 

He didn't recognize it at first, but when he turned his illuminated wand toward its source, he saw Molly's boyfriend. He certainly looked different from when John had last seen him. Gone were his threadbare slippers and comfortable night robes, exchanged for all-black, sleek robes that seemed to cling against his frame like liquid silk. His tie had little glints of silver thread in the wand light. 

"Jim," John said, keeping his wand up. He hadn't ever had a good experience being startled. "What are you doing up here? Molly's quarters are--"

"Oh, I know exactly where Molly's quarters are," Jim replied, his voice bored and a bit more singsong than John would've expected. "But it's so boring down there, don't you see? Little Molly, sweet Molly, with her kittens and flowers and _charming_ decorations."

"So you, what, decided a nice stroll of the towers would be a good idea?" John squared his shoulders, defensive at the man's words about his colleague. Simple she was, but it was endearing. She was innocent; trusting. She didn't deserve to be slandered by a bloke who just hadn't known what he was getting into with her. 

Jim took a step forward, toeing at the stone flooring with a shiny black shoe. "I thought perhaps I'd take in a dance."

Before John had a chance to question it, or put his guard up further, Jim had raised a hand and flicked his wrist, his wand slipping out from the sleeve of his robes. John was outdrawn even with his wand extended. 

" _Imperio_ ," the other man said coolly. 

John had no control, but his mind was fully aware of the Unforgivable as it washed over him. How had he written off Molly's Jim as nonthreatening? What did he have to do with the Ministry man? Aside from helping with Sherlock's cases, John had always been ordinarily unassuming--

Sherlock's case. 

_He's trying to make me dance._

John's wand arm lowered to his side against his will and he found his legs moving stiffly underneath him toward a blank wall on the side of the corridor. But it didn't stay that way--as soon as he came to a halt in front of it, John bore witness to an intricate carving that came over the stone before it fashioned itself into a door which opened for him automatically. 

The man in black was pressed against his back a moment later, urging John into the room, where there appeared to be a large, ornate bath filled with... lavender bubbles. On a small silver table next to the tub was a glass goblet, which John approached slowly, trying to fight it the whole way there. 

They had taught him this in Dumbledore's Army--how to fight the Imperious Curse was an important aspect of surviving the Carrow reign. 

But no matter how strong willed he may have been, John was out of practice with it. His body was straining in every direction, his fingers fumbled as they lifted the goblet, praying he could spill it some way or another, anything to keep the unknown concoction from touching his lips.

He gave it a subtle whiff as his closed lips touched the rim. 

Jim had circled around him, wearing a feral grin, catlike in a way fitting the villain of a fairy tale. 

The resistance was useless: there was a brief moment when the potion spilled against his bitten lips to drip along his chin, but then his mouth was open and it was up to his tongue and throat to work against the rest of him. 

No luck. The warm liquid slipped along the back of his throat, sinking down into the pit of his stomach like drinking lead. 

Part of him was reviewing everything he knew about poisons: would any of them smell damp, like a bit of mould? But there was an undercurrent of... buttered toast?... in the mix, along with an unrecognizable spice like something from the Muggle takeaway curry his parents had always favored.

It had no taste.

He didn't understand it, he just waited for a horrible death to become him. There were no immediate symptoms aside from an uncomfortable after-texture coating his mouth like thick powder, and Jim let him put the goblet down before directing him to stand in a shadowed corner. 

When he followed a moment later, the other man was cocky, standing much too close for John's comfort when he knew he could easily snap the smaller man's neck if he could just break away from the curse. 

And then the door opened and if John hadn't already been immobilized, he would have frozen further. It wasn't just about him, it wasn't just about Sherlock. 

"I brought you a bit of a getting to know you present," a deep voice called from across the room. 

John was the mouse, Sherlock was the cat. 

Jim was the unsuspected bird of prey. 

"Showtime, Johnny boy. Time to dance," Jim whispered, breath hot against his ear. John wanted to flinch, but his hands stayed flat against his sides rather than coming up to wrap around the other man's neck. 

And then he was pushed off into the spotlight, face to shell-shocked face, fifteen feet from his best friend and six steps from a psychopath. 

That was when John's stomach sank. The moment their eyes met, the moment he saw that doubt flicker across blue-grey eyes in golden lamplight. His heart pounded in his chest and he struggled against the Curse, wishing for relief from its bonds. 

It was the moment John Watson realized he was completely, madly in love with Sherlock Holmes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger? No regrets.


	7. Tea, Books, Wooly Jumpers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A confrontation, a bit of snogging, and a bit of angst.

_Evening,_ came a voiceless command in his mind, and he repeated it without pause. _This is a turn-up, isn't it, Sherlock?_

"John." Sherlock's voice was confused in a way John had never heard before. He'd heard intrigue, unnatural interest, ecstatic confusion--but never the sort of underlying betrayal that laced his own name. 

He never wanted to hear it again. 

Sherlock didn't even have his wand drawn. Bleeding idiot. Gorgeous, insufferable idiot. 

John swallowed down the itching feeling in his chest, willing it away, confused and not ready to deal with his feelings. He didn't have a choice. His skin felt too hot, too small for his body, and there was a swirling sensation in his head. He wondered if Moriarty was going to make him kill the brilliant man in front of him. The thought gave a terrible twist in his gut. He'd just realized he was in love with the man, he didn't want to have it all taken away from him so swiftly, so unjustly. 

"What the hell--"

"Bet you never saw this coming." John's mouth was forming the words, but there was no emotion behind them. His emotions were too jumbled together, trying to fight down the sudden adoration he felt for the man he addressed. 

Funny how priorities emerge. 

Sherlock took three slow, calculated steps forward. As much as John's heart was telling him he needed him near right now, he wanted to scream at Sherlock to run, to get as far away from this room as possible. But he couldn't, he just had to wait for his next orders. 

"What... would you like me to make him do next?" One of John's hands began to run his stomach in a circle while the other patted his head, like a happy little monkey doing a trick. 

That was when it clicked for Sherlock; when his eyes widened almost imperceptibly and he took another step forward, turning in a small circle and looking around the room as he did so. John's action switched, and suddenly he was slapping himself in the side of the face. 

"Stop it," Sherlock said, inching ever closer. 

"Nice touch, this, isn't it? The bath where little Carl died." John didn't know what that meant, but he couldn't very well ask. Sherlock seemed to understand, though, even if the was still a trace of confusion in his eyes. "I stopped him.... I can stop John Watson, too." John had time for a deep breath before the next words spilled from his lips. "Stop his heart."

"Who are you?" Sherlock's demand echoed across the water of the bath, off the stone walls. 

Steps followed the echoes, the soles of rich, dragon-hide shoes. 

"Is that a unicorn-core sycamore tucked away in those robes, or are you just pleased to see me?" Jim spoke in a richer, slower cadence than when John had interacted with the man as Molly's supposed boyfriend. Now he just seems dark. 

John wouldn't regret killing him when he eventually got the chance. 

Sherlock drew his wand and pointed it at the other man. It was then that John realized Jim didn't even have his wand out. "Both."

"Jim Moriarty. Hi." He gave a sheepish wave that looked entirely unnatural on him. "Jim?" He asked, as if trying to trigger Sherlock's memory. "Molly's Jim?" he repeated. "Did I really make such a fleeting impression?" 

John watched Sherlock's pale features for recognition. There was a small bit, but John suspected all Sherlock knew about Jim was the bit about the hair product, which had all been an act in the first place. 

"But then I suppose, that was rather the point."

John remembered watching Muggle films with villains--and this was happening just the way they tended to in the movies. Jim was bragging, making Sherlock see what he could do. He stepped closer and closer until he was only an inch or two to John's side. John wondered how many deaths the man had orchestrated, what was driving him. He didn't say as much, just that he had no fears about continuing on.

And that Sherlock was going to let him do it. 

"People have died," Sherlock said. 

"That's what people _do_!" The final word bounced back at them off the walls. 

"I will stop you." That was a promise if John had ever heard one come from those lips. 

"No, you won't," Moriarty countered quickly. He sounded amused, confident. 

"Are you okay?" Sherlock asked, eyes briefly leaving Moriarty in order to flicker over John. 

John wanted to answer. Couldn't.

"You can talk, Johnny boy. Go ahead" John felt the shortest reprieve from the Curse, long enough to give a concise nod of his head to Sherlock, who looked considerably paler than he did on a normal day. 

The brief dispelling of the Curse was enough so that when Moriarty stepped in front of him, John could feel his body twitching with the need to get the man in a hold to give Sherlock enough time to get away. If he could get him out of the room, he'd be safe. They'd be okay. He could take care of Moriarty on his own if he knew Sherlock was alright. 

Right now, it was just a crushing distraction to have Sherlock so close and in such peril. 

His knees buckled forward as he dove to wrap his arms around Moriarty's chest and shoulders. 

"Sherlock, run!" he commanded. But the other man stayed, wand still pointed directly at the pair of them. 

Stubborn git. 

"Good! Very good!" Moriarty said, barely bothering to struggle. John's heart pounded and he tightened his grip, watching the object of his protection over his enemy's shoulder. Jim's voice was flirting with song when he continued, "Oh, he's sweet. I can see why you like having him around, but people do get so sentimental about their pets."

John squeezed tighter, wishing he could suffocate the man with his bare hands from this angle. 

"They're so touchingly loyal," Moriarty said, his face centimeters from John's when he turned. John could feel the man's breath on his face and pulled him away to one side, putting a distance there. 

"But, oops!" the other man cried with a sudden jerk forward. "You've rather shown your hand there, Healer Watson."

John watched in horror as Sherlock dropped his wand and began to do the same rubbing and patting motions that John had been subjected to moments ago. 

He let Moriarty go and backed away. When he did, Sherlock's eyes came back into focus and the man looked at him with an expression torn between frustration and humiliation. How had they come to this? How had they fallen into this trap?

"Gotcha," Moriarty said happily. He wiped off his robes with stiff hands before straightening back up and stepping two paces closer to the Potions master. Sherlock had retrieved his wand without bending and pointed it at Moriarty again, keeping him at arm's length. "I will burn you, Sherlock Holmes," he said. He dared to let Sherlock's wand press against the center of his chest. "I will burn the _heart_ out of you."

"I have been reliably informed that I don't have one," Sherlock replied. 

"But we both know that's not quite true."

For the briefest moment, John thought those clear eyes flickered over to him. 

"Well," Moriarty said, stepping back and completely changing tone. "I'd better be off. It was so nice to have had a proper chat."

Sherlock gripped his wand tighter. "What if I was to kill you now? Right now?"

"Well then you could cherish the look of surprise on my face." Moriarty's jaw dropped, and from behind him, John imagined he looked akin to a cartoon character. He held the face for a moment before returning to a cold, disinterested mask. "Because I'd be surprised, Sherlock. Really, I would. And... Just a teensy bit... Disappointed."

Sherlock's wand didn't waver. 

"And of course you wouldn't be able to cherish it for very long." He paused, giving Sherlock a moment to consider the implications of his words. When he was still alive after five seconds, he simple said " _Ciao_ , Sherlock Holmes" and passed Sherlock to the door, which opened for him. 

"Catch... You... Later."

Sherlock's wand followed until the door closed behind him with a final sounding, sing-song "No you won't." When it did, the taller man whirled back around, letting his wand fall from his fingers as he rushed toward John. 

"All right? Are you all right?" Sherlock asked, running his hands along John's arms, along his shoulder, pulling him every which way looking for signs of injury or further hexes. 

"I'm fine," John said, grabbing at the shoulders of the other man's robes to keep himself on his feet. His knees were weak, though whether that was from the situation or Sherlock's sudden proximity remained to be seen. "Fine. I'm fine. Sherlock."

John panted with relief, with adrenaline, with the absolute onslaught of feelings he was experiencing. He felt dizzy, light-headed, and he was sure he had never wanted to kiss someone more than he did Sherlock Holmes in that moment. 

So he did. 

He grabbed hold of the taller man's robes and pulled him down and forward, slotting their mouths together breathlessly. The sensation of it was like water; it filled every open part of him, flooded him so completely that he was sure he would never be whole again if the other man rejected him. 

But he didn't. 

Sherlock's mouth pressed more insistently against his own, teeth knocking uncoordinatedly, tongues pressing for entrance at the exact moments and instead finding resistance where they meant none. 

It wasn't a good snog by any definition. It was violent, harsh, and unpracticed.

All things considered, it was perfect. 

Those hands were on his waist, pulling him forward bruisingly and then pushing him away just as quickly. 

"John," Sherlock gasped against his mouth. "Moriarty. We have to--"

John shook his head, curling one hand's fingers into Sherlock's hair in a desperate act to keep the other man's mouth against his. "He'll still be evil in the morning."

In the morning. John's head felt fuzzier with the thought of spending the night--endless, infinite nights--with Sherlock Holmes. He grabbed, he pulled, he arched. Anything to bring them closer together.

Against his better logic, the other man seemed to agree with him. John's lips left that soft mouth for a curious moment to drag along the Potions master's jaw line, tonguing at his throat as he moved down. 

He'd never kissed someone so much taller than himself. 

John hooked one leg around Sherlock's waist, hoping to get a bit more leverage, and before he knew it he was being pressed back into one of the columns that decorated the room, lifted against it high enough that he could wrap both legs around Sherlock's waist. The ornate carvings imprinted in his back as he was molded against the wall, caught between bronze and body. 

The new angle pressed their hips together just so, and John moaned, now leaning down to take Sherlock's mouth with his. He wanted to claim him, to tell the world that he was lucky enough to have Sherlock Holmes. That was all that mattered right now. Not James Moriarty, not Hogwarts, not the Houses, not the Ministry.

He had attained _Sherlock Holmes._

It meant something so much more than anything he could ever remember feeling. 

"God, I've wanted this," Sherlock whispered against his neck, arching his hips upwards into John's. It sounded like a confession. Quieter than the rest of Sherlock's words, like he was ashamed of himself for having such desires. 

John didn't answer. He couldn't very well tell Sherlock he'd had a guilty wank about him the other morning. 

"You smell like mould," John said against Sherlock's lips with a small smile before kissing him again. John's tongue snuck out from between his lips and pressed between Sherlock's, licking into the other man's mouth and then quietly retreating, inviting Sherlock to follow. 

His body felt too hot to be contained. He wanted to get out of his robes, wanted to get into the giant bath tub and live out his fantasies from the other morning. He wanted slick skin sliding along his own. Wanted to lay the man out on indigo sheets and make him writhe. 

He wanted _Sherlock._

He sucked on the other man's tongue just a bit too hard and ground his hips down. There were too many sensations to take in. Sherlock's hand inside his cloak and under his arse, the hard heat pressing insistently against his own, the warm promise of a bruise where Sherlock had sucked his skin. 

Sherlock's tongue was exploring the roof of his mouth, slipping behind the flats of his front teeth when the man stiffened suddenly and nearly dropped John to he floor in his haste to get away. 

Long fingers covered kiss-dark lips while pale blue eyes scanned the room in bright torchlight. John stumbled forward, trying to figure out why he had gone from desirable to rejected in the span of a heartbeat. His knees felt wobbly and it took him a moment to come to terms with gravity again now that Sherlock's body no longer supported him. 

He fell back against the pillar. 

A flash of dark robes and Sherlock had rounded on him, grasping him by the shoulders and looking into his eyes with an almost horrified curiosity. John leaned upwards, wanting to kiss it away, wishing he could get back up against the pillar and invite Sherlock into the heated passion they'd shared only a moment ago. 

"No, John," Sherlock said, snapping him backwards with both hands. John's head nearly bounced off the bronze. "This is very important." He paused, taking a moment to let his eyes take in the state of John's half-lidded eyes, the dark reddening of his lips and the flush in his cheeks. John could hear the blood whirring past his ears. "Did Moriarty make you drink _anything_ while he had you under?"

John furrowed his brow, wondering how it could be relevant enough to end their snogging. His mind flitted back to their kiss, momentarily reveling in it until Sherlock shook him again. 

"John," he said, a twinge of desperation in the single syllable. 

Without meaning to, John let his eyes move from Sherlock's face to the empty goblet across the room. Sherlock's gaze followed and he released John a second later, practically tearing through the air to get to the empty cup. John watched, mostly disinterested--he hadn't died, so it couldn't have been that bad--as Sherlock picked up the goblet with shaking hands.

Those hands raised the goblet to a few inches from his face and he inhaled, breathing in whatever was left of the potion's scent. When Sherlock looked back at him, face crumbling in a way John had never seen before, John worried. 

"What is it, Sherlock?" he asked, reaching out as he slowly crossed to him. 

"Freshly brewed tea," Sherlock said slowly. "Old library books." Sherlock looked at the door murderously. John just felt more confusion. Eyes met his for the briefest lock before Sherlock finished his nonsensical list with: "Wooly jumpers."

He took a deep breath and passed John, not able to meet his eye after the final word. Fingers reached to touch the now-distant professor, but Sherlock evaded him.

"I'm so sorry, John," Sherlock said.

"Sherlock--" John turned and watched as the other man bent, picking up his wand from where he'd dropped it before their kiss. His stomach turned when he found himself under the wand's aim. Sherlock was approaching him slowly with the wand pointed, his face looking pale and torn. "What's going on, Sherlock?"

John reached into his robes uselessly. His wand was probably out in the hallway where he'd dropped it, lying on the stone while he was under duress. He was defenseless, he was being drawn on by his best friend, this man who had come so close to being his lover. 

"What are you doing?" he asked, just trying once more. It felt desperate. _What did I do wrong?_ The sudden cold rejection felt like failure. 

"I'm so sorry, John." Sherlock reached out and touched John's lips with a gentle finger, just a ghost of a touch. And then he gave his wand a small twist and whispered a spell John had never knowingly had cast on him.

" _Obliviate._ "


	8. Out of Sorts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why does John feel hungover? And where is Sherlock?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently sometimes I update on days that aren't Saturday?

John woke to the snap of a house elf appearing next to his bed. He was instantly nervous that Sherlock was calling on him to fix a splice, but the little elf just looked up at his groggy face and said "Headmaster Holmes would like to see Professor John Watson in his office at professor's earliest convenience." 

"Thank you, Miffy," he said, his voice gravelly with sleep. The elf disappeared a moment later and John rolled out of bed. His head was throbbing and he felt like he hadn't slept in days. He didn't remember going to sleep the night before, so it was possible that he had barely caught a wink. 

He was still dressed in his robes from the day before, so he supposed he was right in thinking he'd been out wandering about with Sherlock until Merlin knew when. 

It took a few minutes to maneuver his stiff limbs into fresh robes, and there was a painful jolt through his neck whenever he moved too quickly. It felt like he'd had a few too many drinks down at the pub, as unlikely as he knew it was. Then again, he couldn't remember the previous night in the slightest, so he supposed maybe it was possible. When Sherlock was on a stakeout, it wasn't uncommon for John to have a brew or two....

He made his way to the Headmaster's office, kicking himself the whole way there for not already being awake. The halls were strangely deserted for a morning in the middle of the week, but John guessed he was being summoned for his tardiness to the infirmary, which would mean it was likely the middle of the first block of classes. 

John looked up at the ornate statue that guarded the office and said "Lemon cake" to make it spring to life. He ascended the steps mindfully, wondering why he still felt sleepy, even after sleeping in later than he'd usually be allowed. 

"Professor Watson, thank you for calling by so early," the Headmaster said when John stepped into the office. "How are you feeling this morning?"

Uh-oh. That didn't bode well. 

"Well, thank you. Unless I shouldn’t be?" John asked. The Headmaster looked up from his desk and gestured to the seat in front of him, which John took. 

"You've been asleep for nearly four days, John," the Headmaster stated, as if it wasn’t actually going to be news to John. 

John's mouth fell open and he rushed to come up with some sort of excuse, but he found that he had none. He didn't remember anything past Tuesday evening, when he'd gone on patrol. Hadn't he just come back to his chambers? Or had he been dragged off somewhere with Sherlock? There was nothing. 

"On your rounds a few nights ago, you were abducted by James Moriarty, a man who has been pretending to court Professor Hooper in order to gain closer access to my younger brother. He and Sherlock squared off in the Room of Requirement, and at some point, I'm to believe you lost consciousness as a result of a potion given to you by Mr. Moriarty while you were under the Imperius curse."

The way the Headmaster said it made it sound like he was reading it from an official Ministry statement, and for a moment, John wondered if he was. 

He didn't remember a thing. 

"And you don't remember any of this?"

John shook his head. The other man leaned back in his chair and regarded the Healer for a long moment. 

"Would you excuse me, Headmaster?" John asked, head reeling. He needed to find Sherlock; he needed to know what happened. He’d never had any sort of blackout period in his life, not even when he’d first come of age and had far too much fun with alcohol in the Hufflepuff common room. "I'd like to go and find--"

"My brother has taken leave for the rest of term. As there are only two weeks until winter holiday, my brother asked that he be excused from his responsibilities in light of recent events." The older man leaned forward onto his desk, staring down his bird-like nose at the confused man in front of him. He looked concerned, and John assumed it was right to be so. Sherlock? Willingly asking a favor of his brother? "My younger brother is rarely so out of sorts, Professor Watson. I'm sure you can understand why his leave has me wondering exactly what happened in the Room of Requirement."

John nodded. He was just as curious, though for more selfish reasons than the Headmaster.

"But only three men know what happened that night, and whatever it was is locked away somewhere in your mind that you won't be able to access." There was something in his words that made John feel like he was failing someone. "And my brother won't say a word about it beyond what he reported to the Aurors. He was much more concerned with seeing that you were watched over while you came out of your sleep."

"What do you mean?"

"As soon as the Aurors were sure they'd get no further words out of him, he informed us that you had been given a potion that would leave you incapacitated for several days--something just short of the drought of living death." The Headmaster paused and tapped the feathery end of his quill against a bit of parchment on his desk. "You would need looking after. With his determination to leave the castle, he hand-picked six house elves to administer your care."

So he'd been sleeping for four days in the care of house elves?

"We need to know what happened in that room, John."

John agreed, even though he wasn't sure he was included in the Headmaster's "we."

"I'd like to send you to my family home, where my brother will be staying for the duration of the winter holiday. I'll remain here in the castle." He picked up a piece of parchment and held it out. "This is a map of Holmes Manor, as it's very large and I imagine you wouldn't have a hard time getting lost inside. My brother spends most of his time in the East Wing. He keeps a bedroom, a laboratory, and a few other rooms there." The tip of the quill skittered over the paper in a small circle as John held it at army's length for the Headmaster to direct him. "In this room--" The quill paused. "Is a wardrobe. The password to open it is 'Adler.'"

"And what does this wardrobe have to do with me?" John looked at the vast, large rooms and curving corridors of the manor and could easily imagine himself getting lost. It had taken him four months to remember where the Hufflepuff common room was when he was 11, he doubted his sense of direction had improved much. 

"Lestrade?" The Headmaster looked over his shoulder and into a shadowed alcove, where the Auror stepped from at the sound of his name. 

"We need you to find out what happened that night, John," Lestrade said, stepping forward farther and putting a hand on the side of the elder Holmes's desk. "We don't know how dangerous Moriarty is, just that he's been behind all these murders and schemes, and Sherlock isn't willing to cooperate. If we can't figure out how to stop him, more people will die."

"How do you know he's quite so bad? Did Sherlock tell you what the man's done?"

The other two men shared a glance, and then there was a small nod from the Headmaster to the Auror, and the silver-haired man took a deep breath. 

"James Moriarty cast the Dark Mark before disappearing that night."

John sucked in a breath. No one had raised the Mark since the end of the war. 

"So you understand why we aren't taking this lightly,” the Auror continued. “Sherlock insists that the man is only interested in him right now, in coming up with puzzles and trying to make Sherlock play his game. But he's done too much already--and if Sherlock knows something, he's in a lot of trouble for holding it back from the Ministry." 

"I understand, but why not just... I don't know, tell him how serious this is?" Even as he said it, John wanted to laugh at himself. Sherlock never took anything more seriously than he had to, and he certainly wasn't going to cooperate with the Ministry just because they _asked nicely._. The Anderson fellow could get down on hands and knees and John still didn't think they'd get him to tell them anything he didn't want them to know. 

"This is where the wardrobe comes in, John," the Headmaster explained. "Inside it is a Pensieve, which my brother would refer to as his ‘Mind Palace.’ He empties excess thoughts into it regularly, so that he never has to worry about forgetting anything. If he has gone home to recollect his thoughts and get everything in order for a potential showdown with Mr. Moriarty, I believe your incident in the Room of Requirement would practically be swimming on the surface." The Headmaster pointed to the room again, the one with the wardrobe in it. "Just get into this room, John, and you'll be able to get us the information we need."

It felt like a betrayal of trust to John, and it wasn't sitting right in his stomach. 

"You aren't betraying him, John, you're helping him.” The Headmaster had similar abilities to his brother, then. “If Moriarty has made a threat that has so shaken my brother, you'll be bringing it to light and ensuring that the Aurors can stop him before this goes to far." Mycroft Holmes paused and looked at Lestrade, who nodded. 

"You know better than any of us how he likes to do things on his own, John. If you remembered what had happened, maybe you'd be the one telling us. But you don’t have that ability. We can’t let him go at this alone. If he does, there’s no saying if he’ll come out of it alive.” The Auror fidgeted with his robes a bit and stood straighter. “The Ministry wants to work with us on this, they want Sherlock to come forward willingly rather than resort to using a potion to get information from him.”

John knew exactly what Lestrade was implying: Get us the information, or we’ll resort to Veritaserum.

In the end, he made no guarantees. But he said he would try.

***

A house elf answered the door, another house elf took his coat, and a third took his bag and said she would get him settled in the West Wing of Holmes Manor.

Mycroft had said that it would be just John and Sherlock for the duration of the holiday, including their extended two weeks. The Headmaster had brought in a temporary Healer from St. Mungo’s, citing a family emergency as the reason John was needed away from Hogwarts.

John wondered how he was meant to make himself known to the Potions master. Should he send an elf? Or would he be better off wandering around until he found Sherlock doing the same?

In the end, he settled for finding his house elf-assigned chambers before heading off toward territories unknown.

“Master Holmes has assured Fizzy that Master Watson has permission to be in the Manor, sir,” an elf with a low voice said, “even though Master Watson is a Muggle-born, sir.”

“Yes, thanks,” John said, breezing past the elf and into his room. 

It was large and, by John’s standards, impersonal. He supposed for a guest bedroom, it was suitable. The walls were dark grey, the bed was a four-poster with black curtains and a dark duvet. Everything was grey-washed.

John wondered what Sherlock and Mycroft’s childhood bedrooms looked like, or their nursery.

About an hour into staring down the walls, John decided to venture toward the East Wing in search of his friend. Logic said that the house elves probably would’ve told their master about the presence of someone else on the estate, but when he found Sherlock, the professor was... surprised, to say the least.

“John.” Sherlock’s brow furrowed agitatedly and he stared at the Healer, blinking twice as if he expected the man to disappear.

He had been coming down the hallway, wearing a blue silk dressing gown even though it was well passed mid day. John had just rounded a corner, halting just as quickly as the curly-haired man when he saw him stalking down the hall.

“Hi,” John said, suddenly feeling awkward. He could count the times he’d seen Sherlock in less than perfect, professional attire on one finger, this being the occasion.

“What are you doing here?” Sherlock took a hesitant step forward, like an animal peering into a trap.

“Mycroft said you might need company during the holiday.” The lie didn’t sound even a little bit backed up, but Sherlock rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath about his brother meddling unnecessarily. “I was also hoping you might tell me what happened in the Room of Requirement,” John added, taking his own slow step forward.

Sherlock froze then, staring at John with eyes just a bit too wide. “Nothing of importance. I’ve already explained this to both my insufferable brother and his friends at the Ministry.” He was defensive about it; that was John’s first red flag. Sherlock rarely got emotional about things quite so tedious.

Moriarty must’ve really struck a nerve.

“Don’t you think I should get to judge that?” John asked.

“No,” Sherlock said, shortly. “Now, I had planned to spend quite a bit of time on my own. I had explained this to my brother in great detail, so I apologize that he thought to send you here for your holiday. If I were you, I’d head back there on the first train.” Sherlock turned toward a door and John was sure the other man was going to close the door in his face, but Sherlock turned in the threshold in a slight cascade of blue silk. “I’ll ask that you please keep yourself to the West Wing. I have several delicate experiments running down here, some that would be volatile if interrupted by an unskilled observer.”

John nodded agreement, but he was having a hard time processing. Was Sherlock telling him he didn’t want to see him for the next four weeks?

“Happy Christmas,” Sherlock added as an afterthought, and then the door closed.

For a long moment, John stood staring at the dark, wooden door that had just closed five feet from his person. Christmas was in two weeks; Sherlock really intended not to see him in that entire span of time? Or longer?

Perhaps it was realistic to think so in a house of such a size, but that was only if they actively avoided each other. John had no intention of doing such a thing, especially when he was here to figure out what was going on with Moriarty--what had gone on with him--and to help Sherlock develop a strategy for defeating the madman.

John looked down the hall, noting that four doors down was the room Mycroft had said contained the wardrobe with the Pensieve.

He wouldn’t go there now, not when he knew that Sherlock was probably on the other side of the door tracking John’s footsteps to ensure he’d left those experiments alone. But one day soon, he’d do it, especially if Sherlock wasn’t going to offer the information he needed.

John would have to get it himself.

He needed his memories back, memories that had been stolen from him by James Moriarty.

And then they--John and Sherlock, a team again rather than two men living in separate wings of a mansion--were going to destroy him.


End file.
